[itsmeinthelbc]

I'm planning on building a HTPC and want to make sure my Spectrum (Charter) cable service integrates properly. A couple of questions regarding.

Physical connection options. Anyone have luck with a 1) PCI TV tuner / cable card / tuning adapter, or 2) a IR blaster to the cable box. I had a IR blaster to my cable box when I had the WMC setup.

How do I get Spectrum TV guide updates that match my service area?

I would really like to hear from someone that has the fool proof setup for Spectrum service.

Very much appreciated..

Dan

[itsmeinthelbc]

** UPDATE **

So I found zap2it and now know how to pull my EPG information, cool.

Anyone ever hook up an IR blaster to the cable box controlled by the PVR...? To me this may be the best way rather than TV tuners, cards, adapters that all may not play well together...

Again, any info is appreciated.

[rpcameron]

I have Charter (Spectrum) service running here fine, and fairly well integrated with Kodi.

My backend consists of 3 SiliconDust HDHR Prime tuners, each with CableCARD and Tuning Adapter. These are network tuners, meaning they connect to my LAN over a wired GbE. I don't subscribe to any premium channels, so I have very few DRM protected channels in my lineup; if you have many DRM channels (it varies based upon your location/subscription), then you may have to use WMC as your backend as currently that is your only option for DRM tuning. Note, however, that DRM channels cannot and will not play/display in Kodi—not now and probably not ever.

For my backend PVR I use Tvheadend which I have modified to support native tuning for the Prime, as otherwise it does not support CableCARD tuners due to the way they resolve channels through the CableCARD or Tuning Adapter.

For guide/EPG, I have a Schedules Direct subscription ($25/yr) which gives 2-3 weeks of guide data, depending upon the channel. As such, the only fees I have associated with my account are the CableCARD rentals ($2/card), my programming packages and requisite taxes/fees such as local broadcast fees, etc. I had them remove the DVR, programming guide, interactive services, and all other fees from the account because other than the CableCARDs and Tuning Adapaters I have no Charter/Spectrum equipment.

You can also use MythTV as your backend, and it does have native support for HDHR Prime tuners. By default channel mappings are handled by associating with a Schedules Direct account, but by using Schedules Direct's older DataDirect API for guide data, which is less robust than their newer JSON API. You can however use the DataDirect API to create the initial channel mappings, and then later switch MythTV to use the JSON API to receive better guide data after your tuners are set up.

Unfortunately, using CableCARDs means your options are limited. Hauppage has a couple CableCARD tuners, and Ceton had CableCARD tuners as well, but I believe both companies are no longer manufacturing/supporting these tuners. This means that SiliconDust and the HDHR Prime is pretty much your only real option for a CableCARD tuner.

Zap2It does provide guide data, and you can probably work around getting their data into your backend of choice, but I feel that Schedules Direct provides better information for a minimal/nominal fee that is more than worth the price.

As far as using an IR blaster to tune a cable box rather than using tuning hardware, I personally would recommend against this. You will suffer lag of the video, and possibly a lesser quality depending upon the capture card/device you are using to input the stream. (Also, I'm not sure how well the myriad PVR backends play with this type of scenario, since most are geared to controlling the tuner, rather than using a capture device.)